Thursday, November 13, 2014

1830s Dress Coat - The Reveal

The shoulders are the only part of this coat I just don't like. Maybe someday I'll update the coat to some 1840s sleeves instead of the earlier poofs that it has now.

Here's a photo from when I wore the outfit to Old Sturbridge Village. As I recall the weather was warm and the snow was melting to make a lot of mud. But at least I was warm enough in my outfit. The hat is shaped wrong for the period, but it'll have to do.

Yesterday I had my wife take some other photos in our living room. I thought I'd pretend I was reading. :)

Oops! I accidentally deleted a comment from Roger v.d. Velde:"There's substantial drag on the right sleeve and the pitch probably needs to be rotated forward. I'm not up on the stylistic details of Victorian details, but the collar ends (and lapel points) also need to be padded in such a way as to stop them curling outward.

Otherwise it's a splendid recreation."

I just wanted to reply that indeed, those sleeves are the wrong pitch. I already redid them twice, and was simply ready to finish the project. I may revisit them in the future. There's definitely a "knack" to setting sleeves that I just haven't mastered. As for the lapel points, they are padded but probably not enough. Or the collar simply may not have enough ease, so they're pulling up. I have a lot to learn, and hope that my future jackets continue to improve!

I found this picture and thought of your coat:http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=802175&t=w

My thought was that maybe you have the sleeves of the guy on the left but the armscyes of the guy on the right. That is, your sleeves have enough room in the sleeve head to fit an armscye that runs quite vertically from the armpit over the boniest part of the shoulder, but it looks like your armscye actually runs diagonally, from the armpit out to the tip or point of the shoulder, which would give the upper arm that top-heavy look when paired with the fuller sleeve head. Of course I can't be sure from just these photos, but I figured it couldn't hurt to suggest that explanation.

That's a really great observation, and you're probably spot on. This coat draft isn't a period draft (it's from R. I. Davis) and I believe he provides one coat draft for several different sleeve drafts (or I took a later coat for the earlier sleeve and in doing so created the mess myself).

I think my biggest problem when it comes to fitting myself is that by the time I get to the sleeves I'm about ready to be done, so I shrug and plow ahead, instead of taking the time to rip things out or take a really slow, critical look.

That said, since I don't really like the 1830's puffy sleeve, I probably won't make the coat again.

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About Me

I've always loved making things. Anything, everything, as long as I was working with my hands. Two years ago I started making historical clothing for my wedding - I made a Victorian suit and top hat for myself, and I made my wife's Victorian dress and top hat. Since then I've kept making historical clothing, trying to teach myself to make them better and more accurate.

I've found all sorts of blogs about historical clothing, but very few with information about men's clothing. Those that do are almost all written by women who sew for the men in their life. My goal is to have a blog about men's clothing made by a man. I'm learning as I go, but I hope to be a formidable tailor at the end of my journey!